In typical gateway configurations, a packet is classified at each gateway node in order to determine the node policy to apply to the packet at each node. The same or a similar set of information is extracted from a packet to classify a packet at each node, and the packet may be classified with respect to some of the same rules or policies at multiple nodes. Thus, repeatedly classifying a packet at each gateway node results in redundant processing. It would be useful to eliminate such processing inefficiencies.
Thus, there is a need for a manner to classify a packet for multiple nodes in a single pass.